


Will you see?

by kikibug13



Category: Kushiel's Legacy - Jacqueline Carey
Genre: First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-24
Updated: 2010-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-14 02:01:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/144115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kikibug13/pseuds/kikibug13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alcuin's marque is complete, and he asks the man he loves to see it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Will you see?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Miaou Jones (miaoujones)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/miaoujones/gifts).



If I would not do it tonight, I knew not what would give me courage enough to attempt it, another day. The shirt was chafing somewhat against the top of my back, a reminder that pain was not always a bad thing. And that if tonight went ill, the pain that caused would be as things should rest. But I needed to try, for my own heart and the past, wrong and right as I had been in it.

It was late when I entered the library. He was reading, but he looked up to acknowledge my presence with a simple, "yes?" A new note sounded in his voice, one that had occasionally rang in his words since the day when Phèdre ran away to her friend last. I did not know whether it pleased me or not. And I thought I might ask about it later, whichever way tonight went.

"My lord. You have not even asked to see my marque finished." My words came stilted, inside my own head, but he did not seem to notice, so maybe I didn't sound as flustered as I felt.

"Master Robert Tielhard does excellent work. I've no doubt it's well-limned." As though that would be why I would be bringing it up, ever.

"It is. But my lord, the debt is not concluded between us until you acknowledge it." Which may have been the most difficult thing I have ever said to anyone. I wanted the debt to be completed between us. But it also meant the bond it was between us would be gone, too. What was I doing? And yet, I did not want to turn back now. "Will you see?"

"If you wish." His words were formal and he rose. He knew not how nervous I was, but he knew this was of import to me. He couldn't not know.

I let my shirt slip over my shoulders, not daring to raise my eyes to look at him as took in the sight. My hands weren't shaking, and I was thankful for that. The stretch of silence felt infinite as he did, and I had to break it.

"Is my lord pleased?"

"Alcuin." He made a sound that might have been a laugh, but wasn't his laugh. It was richer in meaning than his laughter, and he had taught me enough that I could hear layers and layers of those meanings myself. Not all. Then the warmth of his fingers near made me quiver like a leaf in the autumn wind, even more so against the fresh lines on my skin, lines I couldn't see but felt very much, even more so when touched. "Does it hurt?"

"No." And it took all I had right then not to let my voice quiver, either with what my body and heart yearned for or with the untruth. I turned and put both arms around his neck, raising my gaze to meet his, and the candles' light made his gray eyes warm and filled with specks of green and blue and tan, from this close. "No, my lord, it doesn't hurt."

His hands rose again, to rest on my waist. Most of the touch was over fabric, but there was warmth and strength where his thumbs and forefingers were against my skin, and I could feel his arms tense as he prepared to push me away. That would hurt. I did not know what to do, I panicked a little. Tugging his head down so I could kiss him wasn't a sign of it. Wording my request as I did, was.

"Everything I have done, I have done for you, my lord," I whispered. "Will you not do this one thing for me?"

I had not meant to speak it so, as though trying to force his hand, but perhaps it was what he needed to hear just then to relent, because he did. Breath puffed out of his lips and his face changed somewhat, brows drawing together in an echo of old pain, but he did not push me away. "This is what you want?"

"It is." Now, I dared not take my eyes from his lest the moment fled or I missed something.

And then he lowered his head and pressed lips against mine again, and the soft sound I made was all the sound for a bit as I took the half-step and pressed against his strong, tall body, the way I had longed for, so long. A moment later, his palms slid around my waist and closed around me, tense, but holding, palms crossed over my back and tips of his fingers upon the fresh part of my marque. All sensations - touch and pain and hope and the instant he parted his lips into a kiss more eager than any of my dreams had shown me - all of them twirled in my head, and for a moment I thought I could hear a flutter of wings, faint and beautiful.

We retired to his chamber, then. How, I hardly remember, though I know my way around the house in light and darkness. For a moment after he closed the door, I could but gaze upon him, and his eyes took me in, in turn. I had picked up my shirt, but it was clutched in my hand, not over my chest again; now I tossed it to a chair and crossed the distance between us. He tilted his head, and I smiled. This, I was no stranger to.

He had granted me this boon, and I would make it so he was well-pleased; I would be well-pleased whatsoever he would do.

Undoing his clothes was first, my lips and hands caressing skin as it was revealed, taking my time until the faint light assured me his cheeks had taken on a faint flush and his fingers had risen to tangle in my hair. They tightened a little as I kissed a spot under his collarbone, and I let my tongue flicker over it to be rewarded with an indrawn breath and one of his hands moving down, slipping along my back to under the waistline of my trousers.

"Come, my lord." It was an effort to step away from the circle of his arms, but I did, to let him step out of his own trousers and lose mine and guide us to the bed. We lowered onto it, mouths locked in a kiss that turned my head, even more so as his hands roamed over my body. Not with abandon, no, but with pleasure, and this moment I would take that, take anything, blood pounding in my ears and in my phallus and in spots where my body was tender still, freshly healed wound and limning and all. No, I was all throbbing.

"I would tell you not to call me that, but..." He smiled gently at my dismay, and brushed a strand of hair away from my face, running the back of his knuckles along my cheek, after. "But I would still be the lord of your heart."

And his eyes widened at what he saw in my face, and his lips parted, as though he had realized something, and he was still for the space of two heartbeats, before stretching back and pulling my length over his body, in turn drawing my head down to kiss me, and this was different, deeper, hand on the back of my head and holding me close.

I could have wept.

I kissed back, instead, and when he let go, reached around his head to unbraid his hair, working my fingers through the frost-touched bright strands easy and gently until it changed into caressing the side of his neck, and I lowered my lips to follow my hand at that. He gasped, this time, and shuddered. "This..."

"You do not like this, my lord?" I raised my head again, to look into his face; made a sound of dissent, his expression too complicated for me to read, and I returned to it, kissing my way down to the spot where neck met shoulder, and lingered there, breathing warm over the spot my tongue had caressed.

His body arched up at that small thing, and the sound he made seemed half-sob, half-moan.

Whatever restrain had gripped him before that, it was gone. His hands and mouth in turn moved over my body, and it took my breath away in wide-eyed wonder to see how bright his eyes had become.

He muffled his cry as he poured forth in the curve of my neck; if he called a name, it wasn't mine and he did not want me to hear. When I finished, my hands were fisted in the ginger strands and I was sinking in the gray, color-specked eyes, drowning in how soft they were no.

Softened by tears, I realized as I calmed down, sweat stinging on my marque and awareness returning to me in full. I had not known such abandon in myself, but then, I had not loved another.

And he was weeping.

Not turned away from me, but rather with his face on my shoulder, trying not to let me know, but I could feel the tears I had seen before spilling against my skin.

"My lord?"

"Later, Alcuin. You'll know all, later."

"Yes, my lord."

And I held him until sleep took away the pain I had unlocked.


End file.
